No need to fear...

I haven't stopped on this project.  I just had to take care of doing some major stuff with the house.  I expect to back up and working this weekend.

Good weekend.

Between yesterday and today I got in more blacksmithing time then I have in years.  It felt good but I'm sore now and I'm sure I'll pay for it with a cramp in the middle of the night.

So what did I work on?  Unfortunately, redoing two of the corner posts.  I will chalk these mistakes up to getting back to blacksmithing.  One post I messed up because I punched it incorrectly.  It caused the mortise on the post to be off by a few millimeters.  I probably could have covered it up and most people would not have noticed.  However, I really want to make sure the frame is as square as possible so I got rid of that post.  The other post was a really, really stupid mistake that does not need to be documented.

So today I set about re-cutting two of the posts.  Things went relatively quickly.  However, about the time it started getting dark, my hammer arm began to have a few cramps.  Rather than mess up the posts with a bad hammer shot, I decided it was best to quit.

Feels really good to be doing this again.

Back to work.

This evening marked a return to working on the clock.   Although I was able to do some work on the clock, my primary objective for the evening was proving that I could work after sundown.

I don't have a real "shop" to work in.  My shop is a garage that I have to put my equipment in the driveway before I can work.  Because of the time change in the USA, It means that sundown comes very early.

Tonight I finally utilized some work lights that I bought many years back.  The Halogen lights work perfectly and I was able to work for several hours after sundown.  This evening I did the some hole punching and drifiting on the corner posts.  One of the posts was not quite centered but I was happy with the other three.  I may redo the 4th post tomorrow.  Here is a look at the 4 corner posts punched and drifted.  The punched hole is the bottom part of the corner posts.

Please notice the small "cat toy" om this picture.  A red mouse is at the top of the photo.  This is the result of moving some items from the house and one of the cat toys falling on the yard.

No work this weekend

Partly to remind myself to keep working on the clock, I'm putting entries when I cannot work on it just to keep myself honest.  Going out of town to visit family so no work until at least Tuesday.  However, with the holidays coming up, I am hoping to get a lot done then.

A video of the clock...

This is a video someone put up of the clock I am working to reproduce.  It gives an idea of the amount of work that will be necessary but it also gives nice details on some of the parts.

Ugh...

So while doing some housework over the past few days, I threw out my back.  I am going to try to do at least a little on the clock during the week.

Helpful photo...

While reading some old posts on the previous time I did the corners, I came across this photo.  Thought it might be a helpful reference to what I am doing.

Corner posts cut

I was able to finish cutting the fourth post today.  Really not too much special to say about this other than I noticed my speed is picking back up.  As I get back into the blacksmithing, my confidence is getting back to where it was.  Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

The next step is to create a decorative pattern at the top and bottom.  This is just to make things look prettier.  Also, I will be adding a finial to the top of each post.

Just one quick picture.  These are the four posts.  The "B" is just to remind me which is bottom part of the post.

Some progress made today despite being a bit sick.  Second post is cut out and straightened.  Third post is mostly cut out, just had to quit due to setting sun.  I hope to try and get the fourth done tomorrow.  I've set an aggressive goal of having the frame rebuilt by the end of the year.  If I can do that, it gets me back to doing gear work sooner which is what I find really interesting.

Down with the Imperials!

Just a bit of a change.  Up until know when I took photos, I would often put a ruler in the photo to give a sense of scale.  However, being in the US and our country having trouble with common sense, we still use Imperial measurement.  I believe one of only 2 countries that still use it.

I hope that someday others will find this blog to be useful information.  As 95% of the world uses metric, it only makes sense for me to use metric in the photos.  So tonight I ordered a few metric rulers to use in the photos and when I am doing work.  I will move away from any Imperial measurements in this blog.

Aside from making it easier for the majority of the world to use, it also a peeve of mine that US hasn't switched over.  I figure its a bit hypocritical of me to not use metric.

So, any post prior to this one, Imperial measurement.  Any post after this one will be metric.  Sorry for any confusion.  :)

After work today, I fired up the forge and worked on the second post.  The work is pretty much the same as the first post so no need for extra photos or descriptions.  Only problem now is how early it is getting dark.

Imported old blog

Just a quick note here...

In my previous blog documenting the building of my clock, I had used the Xanga website to document the work.  Due to changes at Xanga, I thought the old blog was lost to the nether regions of the Internet.  Thankfully, I was finally able to export the old entries from Xanga.  After a few issues, I was finally able to import them here.  This drastically jumped up this site to about 470 posts.

Anyway, they are now part of the history of this blog.  Kind of sad for me to look at it because I see how between 2008 and 2013, I struggled to get back into doing the project.  Hopefully I can keep things going here.

I did notice some of the older posts are not showing their images.  I will try to get those working later this week.

Some quick work today

In order to keep things moving, I am trying to do at least a little bit of work during the week.  I just did about an hour tonight but it was enough to do some cleanup on the corner post.  In the last post I mentioned that the post curved during cutting and that I did not straighten it out right away.  This is a photo of what I am talking about.



So, what is the reason for not straighten it out right away.  The reason is a thin piece of metal that is left over from cutting.  The way you cut away a large piece in blacksmithing is use a chisel and cut from both sides.  Technically you can come from only one side but that has it own set of issues.  Anyway, when you cut from both sides, the cut does not always meet perfectly in the middle.  What you get is that the cut on one side just slips past the cut on the other side.  This creates a very thin piece of metal.  This photo shows this.  This is a closeup with the photo only being a few inches.  The top of the photo is the piece of metal and bottom of the photo is the anvil surface.  If you notice on the bottom of the piece is some ragged looking metal.

To cut that metal off, I heat it up in the forge and clamp it in a vise.  Next I use a hammer and chisel to shear away the metal.  The process is pretty quick.  After the metal is sheared away, I use a farrier's rasp to remove any extra bits of metal.  If I do this when the metal is hot, the process is very quick.

Finally I straightened the piece out a bit.  The first photo here shows it next to another piece that has not been cut.  The final photo today shows it next to the drawing on the layout table to give an idea of what I am going for.

Clock work has begun

I have finally restarted my clock project and it feels good.  Today was probably the most satisfying day I've had at the forge in many years.  Even though the work is not all that impressive to look at, it is an important first step.  So without further delay...

Today was beginning work on the frame.  The most important pieces for the frame are the corner posts.  This is not just because of the structure but also because they are decorative in nature.  Getting these done is an important morale booster for the project.

First step is to cut the posts to length.  I rough cut them first (a bit longer then they need to be).  That is because dealing with a 10 foot piece of metal is a bit unwieldy.  The photo below shows the rough cut pieces.  There is also a drawing on the left that is the pattern for the corners.

The photo below shows the pieces cut to length.  At this point I am getting ready to transfer from the pattern to the metal.  I trace where I need to make cuts and then make small nicks in the metal to show where to cut.

This photo shows the beginning of cutting.  I am removing part of the side of the post.  This is for decorative reasons.  I start by tracing the pattern with a type of steel pencil.  This pencil makes a thin scratch in the metal that I can see once the metal is heated.  I then follow up with a small chisel to etch the line a bit deeper.  This photo shows that.

I begin following up with deeper cuts.  Once the line is well defined, I switch a larger and heavier chisel and begin hitting much harder.  This also begins to curve the piece.

As things progress, the metal curves more and more.  I don't fight that curving.  I will clean it up once the waste piece is removed.

The last photo shows the waste piece now gone and the full curvature of the post.  Once again, I will correct that later.  My next post will show why I did not just go ahead and do it while the piece was still warm.  Well, that's it.  The sun was setting and not too much to show but it definitely feels good to start up again.

Finally fired up the forge again.  I was not working on the clock, just trying to get back into the rhythm of working.  I hope to start working at least every few days with the temperatures dropping here in Florida.

Have not forgotten this...  :)  Spent some time in the past few weeks getting the garage in order and waiting for the Florida summer to cool a bit.  Much easier to do work in Florida once the temps get down into the 80s and hopefully a bit lower.  Looking forward to getting back to this.

Small steps...

So, let's get this rolling.  I want to get started and a little step will get it going.  The first bit of work will be redoing the corner posts.  Tomorrow I will appraise what metal stock I have.  I may have what I need but I'm not sure if its clean enough (not too badly pitted with rust).  I want to get started this weekend even if it is only a few hours of work.

During 1996 and 1997 I worked in London.  My office was in the heart of the city and I used that to my advantage.  Just a few blocks from the office was the British Museum.  I found myself often visiting the museum over lunch time.  As any who has visited the museum can tell you, it is massive with many areas to explore.  I was drawn time and time again to the section of the museum with clocks.  In particular, I found myself repeatedly visiting the same clock.

A video of the Cassiobury Park Clock:



At some point on one of these visits, I decided that I wanted to make that clock.  I was naive.  I thought it would be relatively easy to pick up the skills and thought at most it would be a 2 years project.  When I returned to the states, I had very little in the way of shop tools or experience.  I decided the best thing to do was to make a mock up of the clock in wood.  This was always intended as a working model to get me to the point of being able to make the clock using traditional techniques.  The photo below was my second version of the clock.

So starting in about 2002, I finally decided to try and make the clock for real.  I started getting everything around to make the clock the proper way.  I started to teach myself how to blacksmith.  In 2008, I had gotten to this point...




To be honest, I am rather proud of this.  Quite a bit of time and effort went into this.  Things were moving along great.  Then, the worst enemy of a project like this hit.  Its called "Real Life".  I started a new job which no longer allowed me to work from home which in turn cut into my blacksmith time.  One thing led to another and here I am 5 years later with no significant progress.

I won't spend time making excuses or whatever but I want to get back to this project.  I don't know if it will be this weekend or a few months from now but I don't think I will be happy in my later years if I have not finished this challenge.  So, here are a few of the things I am going to do to finish the project.

1. Start fresh.  I am going to start from the very beginning and rebuild the frame.  I am doing this for a few reasons.  The biggest reason is that honestly, I don't feel a connection with the work I've done over 5 years ago now.  I would prefer to give myself a fresh start.
   
   This also allows me to correct a few minor issues with the frame.  Nothing significant but I would like to do it over.
   
   Finally, I would like the new frame just to get my blacksmith skills back up to snuff.
2. Time Commitment.  I tried doing this before but I really didn't stick to it.  What I mean by this is committing to doing a certain amount of work each week regardless of how minor.  If I am not in the mood to work on the clock itself then I make tools that I will need for the project.
3. Patience.  This killed the project as much as getting the job.  When I finally got to the point of making gears, I started rushing which means I started making mistakes and spending massive amounts of time on parts that were throw away.

Anyway, its time to get back to this.  This Albatross has gotten a little too comfortable and I need to get it off by neck.

For archival purposes, my original effort was documented at bomlin.xanga.com

Shutting this down

It is at this point in the blog that i switched from using Xanga to using Blogger.  Any posts prior to this were from the original Xanga blog.  I've imported them here to have the record both for the reader and myself.